1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a horizontally adjustable work surface, which can be easily and rigidly mounted on a steering wheel of almost any motor vehicles, for use by a person sitting behind the steering wheel for reading, writing, eating, using lap-top computer, and cosmetics, when the vehicle is in park position.
2. Description of Prior Art
It often happens to almost all drivers that they have no proper place to put food and drink when they prefer to sit in the driver's seat to eat meals. So, they place the food and drink in the passenger seat, change box, or even on top of the dashboard, which make their eating very uncomfortable and, some times, make a big mess in their vehicles. For ladies, they have no proper place to put their cosmetics when they would like to make-up in their vehicles. They have to hold the cosmetics in one hand and cannot make-up themselves as pretty as they are able to when they are sitting in front of a cosmetic table. When people want to read in a driver's seat, they have to hold the book in their hands no matter whether you like to do or not. When people want to write or use laptop computer in their cars, there is no flat surface for you to use.
Therefore, a number of devices have been created to provide solutions to solve such problems. However, none of these inventions are efficient enough to solve all the problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,306 to Breuner (1998) discloses a portable, steering wheel mounted computer table.
a) By design, the length of the table should be shorter than the width of a steering wheel. This means that the table surface area is limited, even hardly enough for a laptop computer. PA1 b) This device is mounted on a steering wheel by a shock cord. This structure is not practical and rigid. The table will not be in balance, especially when there is an air bag bump on the steering wheel. PA1 c) It does not posses a neat and uniform appearance and looks unstable by using a shock cord or similar material when placing an expensive and heavy laptop computer on it. PA1 d) This device has nothing to prevent stop a force from under the table surface, which may knock the table off the steering wheel and damage the expensive computer. PA1 e) This device cannot adjust the angle between the surface and the support. It needs to adjust a steering wheel in order to make the table surface in a suitable flat position, which often is quite difficult since the adjustment of a steering wheel is also limited, not to mention that many motor vehicles have steering wheels that cannot be adjusted. PA1 f) This device is not strong enough to support a laptop computer that has certain weight. The two support designs of this device disclose that the pivot is too close to the end of the notch in the control channel, which requires to construct the control channel and support with very heavy materials in order to provide adequate rigidity for lap-top computer. That will greatly increase the weight and cost of the device. PA1 g) This device comprises to have control channel at each side. This makes the already limited table space even smaller. Therefore, this feature complicates or eliminates access to the floppy or CD drive on many laptop computers where the drive is located on the rare half of the side of the computer. PA1 h) By design, this device looks not stable enough on a steering wheel and the two end of the tray may go up and down like a seesaw. PA1 i) By design, the table surface is inserted into a slot in the support board. This device should be made of very heavy material to achieve the required function to support the weight of a laptop computer. PA1 j) The support board is solid and flat. This board may not be placed very flat and stable on a steering wheel that is equipped with an air bag. PA1 k) This device is mounted on a steering wheel. The surface of the table can be horizontally adjusted. However, when the surface of the table is adjusted in a horizontally flat position, the surface is above the top line of the steering wheel. This almost makes it impossible for a driver and any user to use it comfortably, because the table is too high. PA1 l) This device only solves one problem i.e. a driver or user has a flat board to write on. This device is not a table, because the surface of the table is in a same angle position as a steering wheel. It is impossible to leave food, drink, printed matters or computer on it, unless a steering wheel is in a flat and horizontal position. PA1 a) may be mounted by clamps on any car steering wheels fast and easily; PA1 b) may be folded up for storage in any place inside the car; PA1 c) has a rigid and stable structure design when mounted on a steering wheel and can take impact of forces from all direction; PA1 d) has a wider table surface for more area without affecting the comfort of a user; PA1 e) has a real flat table surface, no raised slip stop or other structures on the table surface or at the side of the table surface to affect writing or using a lap-top computer's CD or floppy drive when such drive is located at the side of the computer; PA1 f) has special place for drink; PA1 g) may adjust the table surface horizontally to a flat position when used on non-adjustable steering wheel; PA1 h) may adjust the table surface horizontally to a flat position when used on adjustable steering wheel while adjusting the steering wheel alone is not enough to make the table in a flat position; PA1 i) may sustain more heavy weight than all the other inventions, if manufactured with the same material, because the distance between pivot and angle control point is longer; PA1 j) may not need heavy material to make; PA1 k) may be manufactured by plastic casting structure, easy for large volume production;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,305 to Jacovelli (1998) discloses a tray for use in automobiles for placing food, drink or others.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,521 to Callahan (1996) discloses a table device mounted on a steering wheel for computer, printed matter, food and/or beverage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,559 to Martin (1990) discloses a steering wheel table.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 335,226 to Horne (1993) discloses a steering wheel table.